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Elon Musk Says We Will One Day Stream Music Into Our Brains
by Marissa Matozzo
21 July 2020
Can't get that one tune out of your head?
According to Elon Musk, songs may never leave our minds as his latest product, a brain chip implant from neurotechnology company, Neuralink, will one day allow users to stream music directly into their brains. Tangled headphone wires, lost AirPods and broken earbuds may become problems of the average music consumer's past, as the tech magnate and Kanye West devotee plans to make the easiest possible way to stream (and somewhat freakiest) our reality.
Neuralink was founded by Musk in 2016, and currently led by CEO Jared Birchall, aiming to develop "ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers." A new update on the company's progress will be shared on August 28. In the meantime, Musk is taking to Twitter to educate his 37 million followers on everything Neuralink related, from his plans with the company to its current job offers to other cryptic announcements.
On July 19, a Twitter user replied to Musk's tweet about Neuralink job offers, asking him, "If we implement neuralink - can we listen to music directly from our chips?"
Musk's reply? "Yes."
So how would it all work? According to Neuralink, its entire intention of making these chips is to help humans "keep pace with advanced artificial intelligence." Musk also replied to several Twitter users on July 18 who asked if the chips could help those suffering from "brain injuries, autism, ALS" or "OCD." Musk replied that the chips "have that potential" to the former user, and wrote that they could help OCD patients to the latter user:
The company's last major update was roughly a year ago, explaining that a surgical robot will implant "gossamer-thin wires" into a person's brain, as reported by TechCrunch.
These thin wires will be connected to an external computer processing unit. Ultimately, Neuralink wants to make the connection between the brain and computer completely wireless, which would allow for the direct streaming Musk is talking about.
In July of last year, the company announced that it conducted several "successful" trials of the chips on apes and mice, but at that time had yet to attempt the new technology on human subjects. Neuralink said that it aimed to test the new technology on humans as early as the following year, (which is this current year), but that's all that we know for now. Elon has a lot of explaining to do.
Whether or not intense brain connections are in our near future, a new update from Neuralink will be coming next month. Have they since begun conducting human trials? Can we soon stream Grimes' entire discography directly into our minds without ads? We'll have to see.
Photo via BFA